Mild Irritants

Yesterday, my patience was put to the test by a series of what can only be fairly described as mild irritants. Nobody committed any crimes, no one set out to intentionally foul my temper, in fact, none of the guilty parties were even vaguely aware of my existence. All of these mild irritants happened while I was behind the wheel of my car...

I was running a bit late, and I hate being late. I had been detained on the phone longer than expected, so I was in a small hurry to get to my next appointment. Many irritating things happen to people who find themselves in small hurries.

The first stop light I encounter after leaving my parking lot is usually backed up, but fortunately I was second in line behind what looked to be a female of millennial age who was driving a Honda Civic adorned with a Feel the Bern bumper sticker. When the light turned green, she sat immobile as a stone, head tilted down towards her lap where she was clearly engrossed in an impassioned text conversation with her BFF about the latest outrage being foisted upon her by the patriarchy. A full five seconds passed, which in this situation is akin to three dog years. I resisted deploying my horn. Surely, she would snap out of it any second. Two more seconds...three, her Olympian-level thumbs still raging at the very misogynistic air that we breathe! Finally, I stood on my horn, at precisely the same instant that several cars behind me had reached their limits. The flummoxed feminist was startled out of her texting tirade long enough to accelerate into the intersection, but not before she gave us all the universal sign of love and friendship.

Two stop lights later, I found myself third in the queue behind a motorcyclist and a driver of a green late model pickup truck with an empty gun rack in the window. This guy didn’t look like the cell phone type, so the prospects of a clean getaway from the light were promising. However, this particular guy had both windows open, (odd, since it was drizzling rain) and had that far away look of someone who is listening intently to someone speaking. His mouth was ajar, head tilted skyward focused on nothing. The wind shifted and I heard the distinct voice of Rush Limbaugh. The light flashed green, and pickup guy moved not an inch, transfixed by some eloquent point about Donald Trump’s latest three dimensional chess moves being made by the man with talent on loan from God. Luckily for me, before I even had a chance to reach for the horn, the motorcyclist began waving his hands wildly and screaming something obscene, which did the trick.

I was now finally on the interstate, picking up speed and seeking my customary spot in the center lane of the three that constitute 64 east from Short Pump to Richmond proper. As is sometimes the case, I soon encountered a fellow traveler who was not keeping up with the general flow of traffic...that is to say, he/she was going slower than me. I then did what I always do when I come up against those insufferable people who insist on doing the speed limit— I deftly swung over into the lane farthest to the left, which everyone knows is called, the passing lane, so named because it’s sole purpose in life is to facilitate drivers who want to pass their slower, less aware and less pressed for time Highway-mates. It was at this point in my interminable commute that I came upon the least mild of the aforementioned mild irritants...the slow poke in the passing lane. This particular one drove some sort of Volvo with one of those Coexist bumper stickers. The speed limit on this particular stretch of interstate 64 is 60 mph. However, anyone who actually goes 60 mph on this stretch of road runs an excellent chance of being killed. Even the losers in the far right lane, ( reserved for student drivers and octogenarians), go at least 65 here. Volvo-guy is chilling along at 58, oblivious. At this point, I’m seething, talking aloud to no one in particular...Dude, if you want me to Coexist with you, you can start by dragging your hippy dippy moonbeam self out of the freaking passing lane!!! Meanwhile, the guy who I thought was going too slow for the middle lane eventually pulls up beside me and gives me an arrogant side-eye as if to say, Good luck getting around Woodstock there. You shoulda stayed in your lane bub...

I was eleven minutes late for my appointment, but managed to bottle up all of the potential road rage. It’s stored somewhere in my subconscious, and will make a shocking appearance at some point in my future when I least expect. It’s going to be quite the fireworks display!

Incoming Mortars

Unless you happen to be a member of a royal family, or a tenured politician, everything I am about to say about life will sound familiar to you. It matters not whether you are of the greatest generation, a baby boomer, a millennial or a generation X-er. All of us who have spent any time on this earth as sentient beings will understand and appreciate what follows.

It has been my experience in my nearly 60 years that life is a series of stages not unlike the life of a combat soldier, long periods of boredom interrupted by short bursts of intense mayhem. An infantryman can trudge along on patrols for days in a monotonous vacuum, then suddenly an ambush plunges him into utter chaos and violence. Perhaps this metaphor is getting stretched a bit, but civilian life can feel very similar. One can go days, weeks, even months where life clicks along like a well oiled machine, then suddenly a series of mortars rain down in rapid succession, blowing the well ordered routine to bits. Consider...

A dear friend falls seriously ill, effecting many people who you love dearly.

You are presented with an unexpected $20+K expense that demands your immediate attention.

Your upstairs air conditioning unit fails and the repairman speaks ominously of coil repairs.

Your washing machine presents evidence of a leak, forcing an unplanned $700 purchase.

One of the ripple effects of your friends illness washes a boarder onto your shores for at least a month.

Your wife is involved in one baby and one wedding shower in a two week period that also includes three members of her family going into three different hospitals for three different operations.

All of this is introduced into your life inside the space of 5 Days.

None of this is unique to me. Many of you reading this have been so buffeted by life’s unexpected slings and arrows. It could certainly be worse. It could just have easily been my wife who fell ill. If so, everything else on my list would be meaningless. As frustrating as all of these things are, none of them represent unbearable burdens. They are simply...stuff that happens. The fact that stuff like this always seems to happen at once, is a profound mystery. But even this might actually be a blessing. Just when you start to feel as if life has begun to bore you...a whirlwind of challenges rain down, clarifying the mind, exhilarating the spirit, arousing the competitive juices. To continue the metaphor, perhaps it’s a bit like Churchill’s famous observation, Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.

So, I will buckle down. I will plot and scheme and gameplan my way out of this. I will brace myself for other curveballs to come. Through it all I will remain grateful that I am surrounded by people who are worth my best efforts.

Conceding Defeat

In the wake of the most recent school shooting in Florida, an intense national debate over gun control has exploded all over social media. I have been a participant and an observer. I read the arguments, some reasoned and articulate, some wild and unhinged. I find myself agreeing with something one minute and then having doubts the next. It is all confounding and maddeningly complex. A perfect example of the complexity can be found in people’s reaction to the revelation that no less than four cops were on the scene of the shooting but refused to enter the fray summarized as follows:

Advocate of gun control: So, four good guys with a gun were not able to stop the bad guy. I think this should put an end to this arm the teachers bulls**t.

Anti-gun control guy: So, four cops were unwilling to come to citizens’ rescue and stop a mass murderer. I think this should put an end to this you don’t need a firearm because the cops will save you bulls**t.

One of the many ideas being tossed around is the notion of arming teachers. The plausible idea is that if each school had its share of randomly, secretly armed teachers, each properly trained and vetted, the kids would have a fighting chance in the event of an active shooter on the premises. Less plausibly, it is suggested that the mere possibility of armed teachers would in itself serve as a deterrent for a psychopath. But instead of getting into the weeds of the effectiveness of such a scheme, I would rather discuss the deeper meaning involved in the idea itself and that is this:

Anyone who is on board with the idea of arming teachers has officially conceded defeat. Your support of armed teachers is an admission that this nation has dramatically failed and is dysfunctional beyond repair.

Think about it for a minute. Try to imagine floating the notion of an army of concealed carry teachers in American schools fifty years ago. Heck, imagine doing so ten years ago. It would have been laughably unserious. (In what universe are employees thought responsible for their own safety while at work rather than their employers??) But now, large numbers of reasonable people are blithely suggesting that it would be a good idea for school teachers to enter the school house fully armed with deadly force. Why? Because everything else has clearly failed. 

First of all, we can’t count on the security guards we hire to actually do their jobs and engage a shooter. We can’t count on the school boards to budget and employ enough security at our schools. We can’t count on the FBI to follow up clear and unequivocal warnings from people who are screaming their evil intentions for everyone to see and hear all over social media. We can’t count on our police or judges to enforce the laws we already have on the books which make it more difficult for psychopaths to obtain weapons. We can’t count on our politicians to even consider crafting any new restrictions on the sale of semi automatic weapons. We can’t even get them to agree on tougher background checks for such purchases. We can’t count of Hollywood to stop glorifying gratuitous violence. Nothing seems to satisfy our insatiable appetite for bloodier and more sadistic video games. At each and every step along the rocky path that has led us to this point in our history, the systems that we citizens count on for protection...have failed. So now we think...Ok, let’s arm the teachers.

Here’s what arming teachers means to me. It marks the end of American Exceptionalism. It calls into question my full throated embrace of the concept of individual liberty. It makes me question whether of not our constitution has become a suicide pact. When a civilization gets to the point where the physical safety of its school children is in such great peril yet no remedy can be agreed upon because it might infringe on some wackos ability to purchase a military style rifle, then something has gone terribly wrong. But, there can be no liberty without responsibility. Self government doesn’t work without self discipline. If we as a people cannot come together to craft a compromise on guns, we will deserve the violence that will continue all around us. When the next massacre of innocents happens, all of us who failed at this moment will have blood on our hands.

I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t know what specific law or combination of laws are the right ones to enact. Some might do more harm than good. But, here’s what I do know. The status quo is killing us.

My Kingdom for a Hyphen

Each morning since January the 1st, I have begun each day by opening the 90 day bible reading app on my iPad and pulling up the day’s reading assignment. Today was no different. But what I found made me laugh. My daughter, the English teacher and grammar scold will surely find this real world example of the vital importance of proper punctuation enlightening and entertaining.

So, when I open the app, the first thing that pops up is this screen...

You find today’s date and click on it, and up pops the assigned passage. For example, for today, Friday, February the 23, I discover that I am to read from Isaiah 66:1 to Jeremiah 8:22. But, when I click on it, here’s what I find...

I find only Isaiah 66:1 and Jeremiah 8:22. Confused, I go back to the first screen and discover the error. Instead of using a hyphen between the two passages, they used a colon. 

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why we should have paid better attention during English class! The entire day’s assignment laid waste for lack of a proper hyphen. Details matter...

A Touch of Grace

Yesterday was a long, torturous day of alternating waves of hope and despair. My friend still fights. 

To many people, the world seems driven by the forces of luck, chance and coincidence. Indeed, our very existence is explained as a random collision of molecules. Whenever we experience some serendipitous encounter we think, what are the odds?...or, how random was that? Sometimes, people of faith overhype every such encounter as divine intervention...Hey everybody,  Jesus appeared in my toast this morning! But, every now and then, I believe that what the world describes as coincidence bears a striking resemblance to the hand of God. You are perfectly free to disagree with me on this point. We can still be friends.

This morning was one of those times. Yesterday, after watching an amazing family grapple with the specter of death, after reading snippets of news throughout the day about the passing of Billy Graham, after witnessing the power of faith to sustain people in the darkest hours, I open my Read the Bible in 90 Days app an hour ago and what should pop up but the 53rd chapter of Isaiah. Of all the places to be in scripture, the one Old Testament passage that describes Jesus Christ in such beautiful and stirring detail. Impeccable timing. Billy Graham devoted his life to preaching his message, my friend’s life has been devoted to his service, and the family has bet their money and their lives on the truth of his Gospel. And this morning, of all the places I could have been in such a vast and often confounding book, I land on this spot, this powerful, stirring spot...

53:1 Who has believed what he has heard from us?

And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

2 For he grew up before him like a young plant,

and like a root out of dry ground;

he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,

and no beauty that we should desire him.

3 He was despised and rejected by men;

a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;

and as one from whom men hide their faces

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4 Surely he has borne our griefs

and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken,

smitten by God, and afflicted.

5 But he was wounded for our transgressions;

he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

and with his stripes we are healed.

6 All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned—every one—to his own way;

and the Lord has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

yet he opened not his mouth;

like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,

so he opened not his mouth.

8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away;

and as for his generation, who considered

that he was cut off out of the land of the living,

stricken for the transgression of my people?

9 And they made his grave with the wicked

and with a rich man in his death,

although he had done no violence,

and there was no deceit in his mouth.

If you prefer to assign this coincidence to chance or the quirks of fate, that’s fine. But for me, it feels like...grace.

News That Staggers

There is news that staggers you, not news of politics, business, or some celebrity, but word of a dear friend taken suddenly, grievously ill. A certain disorientation falls over you upon hearing it, as if it can’t possibly be true. Didn’t we just have lunch last week? They seemed so happy, appeared so healthy. You are taken aback by the dramatic arrival of calamity. The mind gets rocked with questions. Why this should happen to one so virtuous? Why do the worst, most despicable people in our world seem to skate through their unremarkable lives without this sort of trauma? You know that it’s not really true, but it seems that way when something bad happens to those you love.

Wasn’t it just yesterday when our 90 day bible reading project landed us in Isaiah? Hadn’t we just read these humbling words...

 Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,

scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,

when he blows on them, and they wither,

and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

So, we are staggered by the news. But, the good doctors work hard. It is left to the friends, we helpless friends, to pray and provide what comfort we can summon for the family. In our prayers we are aided by the fine character of our friend. We have much to brag about where our friend is concerned. God couldn’t possibly find a better, more deserving person to heal. 

And then, there’s this. Despite how small and insignificant we feel when confronted with verses like the one quoted above, there is always a glimmer of hope, and when we find it we are overcome...

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place; What is man, that you should care for him? You have made him a little lower than the angels and crowned him with honor and glory.

Jesus in America?

Over the weekend, a gun control debate broke out on my Facebook wall. It was mostly my fault, since I was the one who brought up the subject. As is often the case in such social media debates, it was a rambling affair, with many chased rabbits and its fair share of non sequiturs. But, at one point a friend of mine offered this observation:

Let me ask this hypothetical question to everyone on this thread as it appears most of which profess to be Christians...if Jesus were alive today living in America, do you think he would be a gun toting, NRA member, and AR-15 owner? The Jesus I read about doesn’t seem like the type.

Of course, my immediate response was deflecting and pithy...Maybe not, but he might be pretty handy with a sling shot.

However, the more I think about my friend’s hypothetical, the stranger it seems. Jesus Christ, alive today, living in America. Imagine.

First of all, he would have to get here, and being a swarthy middle eastern man, that might prove a challenge what with no fly lists. But assuming he could manage that, then he would have lots of other challenges. An itinerant carpenter with no fixed address, no possessions, and a band of 12 equally transient followers sound like the textbook definition of a sleeper cell to me! Add to this mix his tendency to practice medicine without a license, the manufacture of alcoholic beverages without a license, and his disturbing habit of associating with the underclass, and I’m thinking the FBI’s dossier would get thick in a hurry.

To my friend’s point, no, I can’t imagine Jesus being an NRA member or owning a firearm. But I can’t even imagine Jesus living in America either. But, the point of his question is flawed because it attempts to enlist him as a prop in a political debate. We all assume that we are on the side of the Angels, and what better proof than shoehorning Jesus into your political theories? In his three year ministry on this earth he had multiple opportunities to rail against the corrupt, brutal occupation of the Roman Empire, but he failed to do so. But that hasn’t stopped both sides of the American political spectrum from claiming Jesus as their champion. From the left we hear that Jesus was an avowed social progressive, his admonition to take care of widows, orphans and the poor a clear endorsement of the modern welfare state. From the right, Jesus is proclaimed the original pro-lifer, and author of our devotion to God rather than the state. But then I see that grotesque painting of our Lord and Savior, ghost-like, his vaporous form hovering behind Donald Trump, guiding the pen in his hand as he signs some bill in the Oval Office...and I shudder at the horror of such a thing.

The truth is, attempts to co-opt Jesus Christ into political service is a fool’s errand. Politics is the business of coercion, the building of coalitions, the cobbling together of imperfect compromises, a grubby exercise of temporal power plays designed to exploit every human emotion into a political movement best expressed by that most vacuous phrase...the personal is political. The gospel, by contrast, doesn’t much concern itself with the corporate, but rather tells of Jesus standing at the door knocking, of leaving the 99 to pursue the 1 who is lost, of being stirred by one troubled soul touching his garment amidst a throng of people crushing against him. While his teachings can and should inform our beliefs about politics, the savior himself isn’t a political spokesman, and attempts to make him one are doomed to failure.